The American Record

Success Stories from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission

NHPRC DOCUMENTING DEMOCRACY National Historical Publications and Records Commission National Archives and Records Administration

700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20408­0001 www.archives.gov/nhprc The American Record IIt has been called “the little agency with the big impact.” Through a modest, but catalytic, investment in our nation’s archives and his­ torical records, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) preserves and makes public the American Record. Established in 1934 along with the National Archives, the NHPRC has funded some 4,600 projects connecting Americans with the primary source materials of our history, culture, and democracy. The American Record is the sum of all the documents and records kept in family attics, housed in filing cabinets in church basements or county courthouses, managed in archives at the local historical society or at institu­ tions both private and public, and held in trust by government, including the Federal treasures at the National Archives. The American Record can be found in diaries and letters, in ships’ registers of immigrants, in military muster rolls, the census, deeds to properties, and documents formalizing the transition from slavery to freedom. The American Record can be seen in the millions of faces captured by film, heard in audio recordings, and viewed in billions of digitized and born­digital bytes on the Internet. Through all these testimonies of the past, the American Record captures the countless voices that make up the nation’s unique and compelling story. Grants from the NHPRC are awarded on an annual basis through several competitive funding categories: archives projects, digitizing historical records, electronic records, publishing historical records, professional development, and state archival partnerships. Each of these initiatives is designed to increase public access to the American Record.

ii Archives and Historical Records The collective American Record is embedded in the millions of documents and records that helped establish the nation and marked our progress. The NHPRC funds projects that help the nation’s archives organize historical records and manuscripts, catalog and describe them to make them known and available for use, and store them properly to ensure their longevity into the future. Thousands of archival projects at local government archives, colleges and universities, and other nonprofit institutions have been supported. These archives enable scholars and students, family and local historians, journalists, documentary filmmakers, and many others to use original source materials. Approximately half of the NHPRC’s funds have helped preserve and make accessible literally millions of cubic feet of historical documents. One of the hallmarks of the NHPRC approach has been to reach out beyond traditional collection policies. Joan Krizack of Northeastern University writes that “Early on, the NHPRC recognized the importance of and became a leader in the effort to broaden archival documentation to include underrepresented groups.”

Grants have helped to

Establish or modernize public records programs in state and local governments. A few such examples include Troup County, Georgia; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Lauderdale County, Mississippi; and in metropolitan centers like Seattle, Boston, San Diego, and San Antonio.

Preserve and make accessible oral history and tribal records of American Indian tribes—including the Seneca, Blackfoot, Oglala Sioux, Zuni Pueblo, Fort Sill Apache, Suquamish, and dozens more.

iii Support nonprofit institutions that enhance public access to historical documents in their care. The NHPRC has awarded in excess of $50 million for collections of personal papers, photographic collections of all types, architectural plans and drawings, ship designs, film and video footage, and sound recordings.

Electronic Records One of the first funders to recognize the importance of electronic records, the NHPRC has seeded preservation research and development—from a major multiyear, international effort known as the InterPARES project to the Meta­ Archives to develop services for organizations facing the challenge of preserving this new kind of record. From e­mail to geospatial maps, the range of electronic records defies easy preservation solutions. Every year, state governments, universities, and other nonprofit institutions turn to the NHPRC for grants to manage their electronic records, and the Commission is part of a government­wide effort to handle the deluge of data, the obsolescence of software and hardware, and the breadth and scope of electronic records. Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor at Cornell University Library, credits the NHPRC with identifying the research needs for electronic records:

From its support for major research projects . . . to its contributions in support of practicing electronic records archivists, the NHPRC has to a large extent guided the agenda for the most fundamental issue facing contemporary archivists.

Digitization The NHPRC initiated a program to fund digitization projects in the fall of 2006, with a primary focus on making primary historical records freely accessible via the Web. Examples of Commission­supported projects include the

iv Archives of Michigan’s Civil War military service records; the University of Florida’s collections on the exploration, development, and conservation of the Everglades from 1878 to 1929; and the Railroad Commission of Texas’s records on the Oil Boom of the 1930s. Individuals who have contributed to the American story are also the subject of digitization projects, including 20th­ century environmentalist Aldo Leopold; Henry A. Wallace, FDR’s Vice President and the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948; and Samuel A. Goudsmit (1921–1979), the renowned physicist who headed the team investigating Germany’s progress in developing the atomic bomb during World War II.

Publishing Historical Records Over the course of a generation, the Commission has supported a remarkable body of multivolume editions documenting the American Record. Documentary editions, a special form of historical scholarship, combine collected papers, authoritative transcriptions of correspondence to and from significant historical figures, interpretative introductions, and annotations to produce a multidi­ mensional view. Virtually every aspect of the story of American democracy— great leaders, historical eras, social movements—has been funded. As a cornerstone to American history, the papers from the Founding Era of our nation are national treasures and a public monument to statesmen and patriots. Other important figures from U.S. history are the subjects of documen­ tary editions—such as Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, and George C. Marshall. Papers of social reformers and civil rights leaders include those of Jane Addams, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many more. Scientists, humanists, and explorers include Thomas Edison, John Muir, and John Franklin Jameson, who played a leading role in creating the National Archives and the Commission. In addition to funding the editorial work, the NHPRC has invested in a publishing subvention program that supports nonprofit presses to help defray the costs of publishing the print editions.

v State and National Archival Partnership (SNAP) This unique program has created partnerships with state historical records advisory boards and with state archives to help ensure that primary source materials are preserved. One often­used mechanism for this effort is a regrant program, in which the state boards, using NHPRC grants, administer statewide competitions to find worthwhile archival projects. Other grants have gone to help state archives plan, survey, and implement new strategies, and most recently to act as a national archival network in developing preparedness and recovery plans for collections damaged by natural disasters. Pat Michaelis of the Kansas State Historical Society writes that the NHPRC “has made its money go farther and has reached more diverse audiences than most federal agencies.” At least two states—Rhode Island and Idaho—appointed their first professional state archivists as a result of NHPRC­sponsored studies, and several reports made successful arguments for new state archives buildings in New Mexico, South Carolina, and Delaware. While planning might seem dull to some, according to Richard Earney, former Wisconsin State Archivist:

This work over decades [has] inculcated and supported the application of strategic, analytical thinking to the management of historical records and helped to move . . . American archival institutions and practitioners away from our older atomistic and uncoordinated views and practices.

The stories contained in this booklet are but a small fraction of the successful projects supported by the NHPRC. Hundreds of meticulously crafted documentary editions have been produced, and millions of papers, pho­

vi tographs, sound recordings, and other documents have been saved. As a result, millions of our fellow citizens have a deeper understanding of our nation’s history. Established 75 years ago, and in the midst of its fifth decade of grant­making, the Commission looks forward to continuing to lead the way in preserving and making public the American Record. For more information about the programs of the NHPRC and how your organization might apply for a grant, please feel free to contact us at www.archives.gov/nhprc.

vii The NHPRC has enabled communities of all sizes across the country to establish or modernize archives and records management programs. Such locally based records provide us with an understanding of centuries of urban development and capture the important role cities and towns have played in our growth as a nation.

viii eattle SMunicipal Archives

The Seattle Municipal Archives was established in 1985 with a two­year Tgrant from the NHPRC. The Archives initially was based in the City Clerk Division of the Office of the Comptroller, and has been part of the City’s Legislative Department for over a decade. In 1988, as part of an NHPRC grant, the Municipal Archives published A Guide to the Archives of the City of Seattle, which was awarded the Society of American Archivists’ C.F.W. Coker Prize as the year’s outstanding work in the area of archival description. The Municipal Archives documents the history, development, and activities of the agencies and elected officials of the City of Seattle. Strengths of the records include those documenting engineering, parks, urban planning, the legislative process, and elected officials. Holdings include over 6,000 cubic feet of textual records, 3,000 maps and drawings, 3,000 audiotapes, hundreds of hours of motion picture film, and over 1.5 million photographic images. Among the archives’ materials are records documenting the anti­Chinese riots of the 1880s, the Alaskan gold rush pioneers of 1897, the labor movement, two World’s Fairs (1909 and 1962), and urban renewal projects such as the Pike Place Market, the largest public market in the country. A 2009 NHPRC grant will help the Seattle Municipal Archives process an additional 1,858 linear feet of “hidden” collections that require basic attention to make them known and available for use. Raymond Mohl, author of several books on urban history, says, “The Seattle Municipal Archives is among the best such facilities in the United States.”

1 Prior to the work of NHPRC ­sponsored projects, our documentary heritage for certain periods — such as the post –Civil War years of emancipation— was scattered widely across the country. reedom FHistory Project

The history of emancipation is one of the most extraordinary stories Tin the American Record. In the fall of 1976, the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, housed at the University of Maryland, launched a systematic search for records documenting the history of the death of slavery and the birth of freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Since that time, the project has published five of a projected nine volumes of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867, and four additional volumes, designed for general audiences and for teachers, have been published in paperback: Free at Last and Families and Freedom (The New Press) and Slaves No More and Freedom’s Soldiers (Cambridge University Press). The staff has kept a cumulative tabulation of how people are using its publications. For example, the papers have been cited in 23 reference works, 15 documentary editions, 130 monographs, 212 scholarly articles and essays, and 68 college­level textbooks and anthologies. At least 152 college courses have made use of the work, as well as 41 teacher workshops, 8 publications for elementary and middle school teachers, 3 collections on compact discs, 9 books for young readers, two dozen books for popular audiences, 9 exhibits, 6 films, 11 television programs— including Ken Burns’s Civil War series, 16 radio programs, 80 stage productions, and 176 web sites. One of the editors, Steven Hahn, also wrote A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration, which received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for History.

3 Oral traditions play a vital role in the heritage of American Indian tribes, and the NHPRC has worked with dozens of tribes to establish or modernize tribal archives.

klahoma OTribal Heritage Project

American Indians have lived in what is now the state of Oklahoma for Amore than 10,000 years, and some 84 tribes or bands still have reservations in the state, including those forced into resettlement there in the 19th century. The records of those people face a multitude of chal­ lenges, not only those born of the tragic histories faced by many of those tribes, but also since much of the history is passed along through oral traditions, and tribal archives generally lack infrastructure. From the inception of its grants program, the NHPRC has been assisting tribal archives with educational programs, microfilming of archives, recording of oral histories, and helping individual tribes to develop records management programs and archives. Oklahoma presented the unique opportunity to assist multiple tribes. To address critical needs, the Oklahoma Department of Libraries developed a Tribal Heritage Project that targeted three important goals: to strengthen the infrastructure of tribal repositories, to promote a network for preservation, and to support preservation

4 of and access to tribal records. The Project surveyed 600 tribal and non­tribal repositories in the state to identify primary sources relating to tribal history and conducted a sub­ grant and training program to meet the needs of local archives. Support totaling $150,000 went to 18 Oklahoma archives, from the the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cul­

tural Heritage Center to the Red Earth Festival. Grant recipients also attended a one­day workshop on “Threats to Your Collection” and “Managing Tribal Records Repositories.” Eight schol­ arships were awarded to a three­day National Tribal Archives and Records Institute in Tulsa. The Institutes provide information and hands­on instruction regarding the care and management of archival, library, and museum collections, with emphasis placed on the special considerations involved in American Indian materials.

Works uncovered by the scholars undertaking documentary editions are often used by historians, television, and filmmakers to create new popular historical biographies—from HBO’s “John Adams” to A&E’s “Thomas Edison: Father of Invention.” Thomas Edison

The “Wizard of Menlo Park,” Thomas Edison, was the nation’s most creative and Tprolific inventor and innovator of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He gave us the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and the first industrial research and development laboratory. He was a pioneer in film and electric power creation and distribution, and he owned dozens of businesses known around the world. Edison was the embodiment of the American “can­do” spirit. At the Thomas A. Edison Papers project at Rutgers University, the editors have identified five million pages of Edison­related material and have a threefold goal in bringing this wealth of material to the public: 1) publish a six­part selective image edition on the Internet, 2) publish a 15­volume book edition of transcribed and annotated documents for researchers and scholars, and 3) disseminate interpretative and educational materials of interest to a broad segment of the American public. To date they have created the Edison Papers web site (http://edison.rutgers.edu) with 176,000 images and a searchable database of 145,100 documents and published six volumes of the documentary edition, with plans to develop an electronic version of the book edition, tentatively titled Edison and His World, on the Johns Hopkins University Press web site. Each year over 60,000 people visit the Edison Papers web site, named as one of the best humanities sites on the Internet by the EDSITEment Project, and the project has developed hands­on lesson plans for New Jersey middle school students. The editors have also assisted in the production of documentaries by renowned filmmaker George Lucas and The History Channel. 7 The Papers of Abraham Lincoln project is taking a new approach to documentary editing by producing a comprehensive electronic edition followed by a more selective print volume. The project will publish on a publicly accessible web site and is exploring the use of color microfilm as a long­term preservation medium. Abraham Lincoln D“Discourage litigation,” wrote Abraham Lincoln in his notes for a lecture on law. “Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.” Abraham Lincoln is so strongly identified with his years as President that his long career as a lawyer in Illinois had received little attention in comparison. This was remedied in 2000 with the publication of the Lincoln Legal Papers, a documentary history of his law practice from 1836 to 1861. The study of Lincoln’s legal career sent a team of researchers into 88 Illinois counties, other states, and Washington, DC. The DVD set contains more than 5,600 cases and legal matters, and 96,000 documents. Editor Marty Benner explained that just one DVD holds the equivalent of 45 file cabinets of papers. In 2006, law professor Mark E. Steiner authored An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, which distilled the essence of Lincoln’s law practice into a useful, up­to­date survey. The following year, the University of Virginia Press published a 4­volume hardcover edition of Papers of Abraham Lincoln: Legal Documents and Cases with support from the NHPRC. All of these new editions of primary source materials further our understanding of Lincoln’s legal career and are part of a larger editorial effort, Papers of Abraham Lincoln, also supported by the NHPRC.

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9 useum Mof Fine Arts, Houston

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), established an archive pro­ Tgram in 1984 through a grant from the NHPRC. During its 25­year his­ tory, the archives department has grown to include not only the museum’s own institutional records but also the historical papers of individuals and organizations important to the city’s cultural development. Spanning more than 100 years, the records capture a community­centered approach to the arts that began at the dawn of the 20th century and Institutional archives, such as those was timed fortuitously with the discovery of major held by museums, colleges and oil deposits in the region. The MFAH archives consists of 2,500 linear universities, and other organizations, feet of records and manuscripts, and the depart­ are vital not only to understanding ment operates an institutional records manage­ the history of those institutions, but ment program that oversees an additional 1,000 also the role they play in our local feet of temporary records. Holdings include the papers of Texas arts patron and philanthropist and national culture and history. Miss Ima Hogg and the records of Houston’s Con­ temporary Arts Museum. Through a Web­based database, the archives provides access to extensive and detailed information about the MFAH’s 85­year exhibition history, education programs, collections development, and architectural maturity. Researchers and authors have used it to compile local and regional histories, biographies, Houston architectural surveys, catalogues, and other monographs. The MFAH program is one of several such archives formed over the past two decades in the nation’s museums, initiated with seed funding from the NHPRC. As a part of an ever­growing network of archives, it has emerged as a vital historical records repository for the region.

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11 Our National Recorded Heritage is in danger of being lost. Early recordings that have deteriorated over time or that are only usable on antiquated technologies may be lost forever if they are not preserved now.

12 onterey MJazz Festival

In September 1958, the first Monterey Jazz Festival brought in artists Ilike Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, John Lewis, Shelly Manne, Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Ernestine Anderson, Harry James, Max Roach, and Billie Holiday to a sylvan setting in Northern California. Every year since then, the third full weekend in September sees the same caliber of talent grace the now nine stages on the Monterey Fairgrounds, as the Monterey Jazz Festival presents the best jazz performers in the world for a three­day celebration of premier jazz. The recordings over a half century document the most significant jazz musicians of the 20th century. In partnership with the Stanford University Archive of Recorded Sound, the repository for the music, the Monterey Jazz Festival came to the NHPRC to preserve aging audiotapes in digital format and to provide access copies on compact disc and samples as MP3s over the Festival’s web site (www.montereyjazz.org). The project produced one terabyte of data containing a total of 2,600 individual and distinct selections amounting to 300 hours of American music. Stanford’s Archive of Recorded Sound learned through working on this extensive project that digital reformatting work is a funda­ mental part of sound archives operations and that it will be the baseline for similar efforts in the years to come. For the Monterey Jazz Festival, which also produces and presents year­round local, regional, national, and international education programs, this archive preserves a priceless history of the unique American sound of jazz.

13 merica’s AFounding Era

Perhaps no other set of projects illustrate the breadth of the work of the PNational Historical Publications and Records Commission than the monu­ mental series of documentary editions on the Founding Era of the nation. Early on in the Commission’s history, it became clear that the single greatest need was reliable access to the full range of documents of the statesmen who founded the country, and that furthermore, it would be important to fully transcribe and annotate those papers so that they are legible and under­

“I have great hope for the children of standable to a present­day reader.Work began at several universities in the 1950s and 1960s America, that they too will read the to undertake this task for the following works of Madison and Washington founders: Benjamin Franklin, George Wash­ and Jefferson and Adams and Hamil­ ington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Addi­ ton. For in their letters to each other tional projects were subsequently launched and in their essays, in their arguments to complement the papers of these individu­ and in their opinions, all so passion­ als with documentary histories of the Ratifi­ ately stated, the image of an age can be cation of the Constitution, the First Federal Congress, and the early years of the United discerned.” — Ronald Reagan States Supreme Court. These documentary editions, along with the papers of other patriots and statesmen, form a unique core of understanding regarding the nation’s formative years, and scholars accessing these primary sources have virtually rewritten the history of the birth of our nation. The work that has been carried out has resulted in a deeper understanding of the individuals who founded the nation, as well as a more detailed account of the times they helped to shape. Through the written record of their thoughts and ideas, their official correspondence and personal letters, and the thousands of

14 exchanges with diplomats and generals, and friends and foes both foreign and domestic, we have a significantly enhanced account of the many characters who took part in our nation’s formation and development. Several great historical biographies have resulted directly from the riches discovered in the Founding Era documentary editions. Ron Chernow used the Hamilton papers to pen his authoritative biography Alexander Hamilton. The 2001 Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by historian Joseph Ellis uses primary sources from several of the founders, as does David McCullough’s account in 1776. McCullough based his Pulitzer Prize–winning biography John Adams on these primary source materials, and that book was later turned into an award­winning miniseries that aired on HBO. “Their value is unassail­ able, immeasurable,” McCullough has said of the documentary edi­ tions. “They are superbly edited. They are thorough. They are accurate. The footnotes are pure gold—many are masterpieces of close scholar­ ship.” Hundreds of articles and scores of histories and biographies have been created through the use of this scholarship, including at least five Pulitzer Prize recipients and one National Book Award winner. Likewise the histories of the Ratification of the Constitution, the First Federal Congress, and the early Supreme Court have revised our understanding of the mechanisms of government in an age of experi­ mentation and trial. Documentary editions of figures such as John Jay, John Marshall, and other statesmen, along with histories of early U.S. foreign relations, the first Federal elections, and the personal diaries of ordinary citizens help round out the picture of life in late 18th­ century America. From archives and repositories across the country and around the world, these documents—largely handwritten—have been painstakingly transcribed, annotated, and preserved for genera­ tions to come. In history and social studies classes in every school in the United States, teachers are using these primary source materials to tell the American story.

15 arvard HDaguerreotypes

The preservation and use of photographs as historical records is a priority of the TNHPRC, and projects at the Bancroft Collection at the University of California, the Archives of Industrial America at the University of Pittsburgh, and the West­ ern History Collection at the Denver Public Library are but a handful of exam­ ples of major photographic collections helped through Commission grants. One of the earliest forms of photography—the daguerreotype—offers in­ sight into the life of mid­ to late­19th­century America, and one of the foremost collections is at Harvard University. The original silver­coated plates, dating from the mid­1800s, captured many subjects, including The NHPRC has funded hundreds of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Swedish singing sensation Jenny Lind, projects that focused on photographic the young Henry James and his sister Alice, artist collections, preserving everything James McNeill Whistler, and the physicians at the from newspaper and television Massachusetts General Hospital as the era of modern anesthesia was born.A grant to Harvard archives to the records of noteworthy University Library’s Preservation Center helped photographers, as well as major col­ stabilize 80 daguerreotypes in danger of deteriora­ lections from all corners of the nation. tion and re­housed the entire collection in cus­ tom­designed permanent and durable storage enclosures.A detailed guide was created for researchers to discover images housed in 14 separate locations at the university, and 795 daguerreotypes were photographed, microfilmed, and digitized to facilitate public access. A special exhibition was mounted by Harvard University, and a compan­ ion book, A Curious and Ingenious Art, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2000, celebrating this collection assembled for the first time and exam­ ining the telling histories behind these early photographic records.

16 17 18 Georgia Archives

The NHPRC works with state government archives primarily through the state his­ Ttorical records advisory boards,initiated in the 1970s,as the Commission looked for ways to fund statewide programs.One of the most important collaborations with the states has been regrant programs,which allow states to reach out to community archives to fund projects that preserve and open up historical records of local interest. Many state boards also have offered training and education workshops,National His­ tory Day events,and “circuit rider” archivists who bring professional expertise to small repositories grappling with how to best maintain their holdings. The Georgia Archives has been particularly suc­ cessful in its endeavors. Its most recent circuit rider “Those of us in the hinter­ archivist program provided on­site consultations to lands sometimes feel left out 108 local organizations in 74 counties, and nearly a of government’s grander quarter­million dollars was awarded in regrant funds to 31 organizations in 26 counties. The influx of Fed­ sweeps. This program gets eral dollars enabled the state to contribute its own re­ straight to us with practical sources, which more than doubled the funds advice.” — County Manager, available for the program.All across the state, organi­ Stewart County, Georgia zations—from the Thomas County Historical Soci­ ety to the Augusta Museum of History—were empowered to take on new preservation efforts, prepare for natural disasters, manage electronic records, or provide better access to historical records for the people of Georgia. A mark of the program has been its ability to reach out to all parts of the state. The county manager of Stewart County, on the Alabama border in southern Georgia, said, “We appreciate the Circuit Rider Program. Those of us in the hin­ terlands sometimes feel left out of government’s grander sweeps. This program gets straight to us with practical advice.”

19 “Eleanor Roosevelt’s legacy as a person, as a leader, as an inspiration, can help today to guide us in protecting the human rights of all people, and, in particular, of children.” —Hillary Rodham Clinton Eleanor Roosevelt AAfter arriving at her New York apartment following her departure from the White House in 1945, the recently widowed Eleanor Roosevelt told reporters, “The story was over.” But in reality, a new chapter had begun. When the first volume of the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, The Human Rights Years, 1945–1948, was published in 2007, Newsweek touted the edition as a long overdue first step in a reconsideration of the former First Lady’s place in history, as not simply an idealist, but a “smart, disciplined and unabashed strategist.” Eleanor Roosevelt’s life (1884–1962) spanned the crises faced by the nation through two world wars, the Great Depression, and the Cold War. As a journalist, television and radio commentator, and lecturer, she helped define complex issues in ways that increased public awareness and spurred informed public debate. As delegate to the United Nations and chair of its Human Rights Commission, she challenged the world to acknowledge and protect human rights. Freed from the constraints of the White House and the United Nations, she spent her last decade writing and speaking out, for, as she wrote, “we are on trial to show what democracy means.” In addition to its publication as a print edition (now through the University of Virginia Press), the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers at the George Washington University has made available through its web site (www.gwu. edu/~erpapers/) all 8,000 of her “My Day” columns, numerous audio broad­ casts, and widely used curriculum guides for teaching about Eleanor Roo­ sevelt and human rights.

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Ken Burns relied on the Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.Anthony to produce his “Not for Ourselves Alone,” a groundbreaking documentary on the early history of the Women’s Movement that aired on PBS. tanton–Anthony SPapers

Over the past decade, no fewer than a dozen books and scores of scholarly articles Ohave used the Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to help spur critical thinking on the history of suffrage and women’s rights in America. Children’s books, such as Tanya Lee Stone’s Elizabeth Leads the Way, have helped young students learn about this part of the American story by asking, “What would you do if someone told you you can’t be what you want to be because you are a girl? . . . your voice doesn’t matter? Would you fight for your rights? Elizabeth did.” The papers of Stanton (1815–1902) and Anthony (1820–1906) are the most important source for examining the political history of the women’s rights movement before the 20th century. Stanton, the movement’s intellectual matri­ arch, helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention (1848), the first national women’s rights convention in the United States, and she formulated its philo­ sophical, legal, and constitutional arguments through political tracts, histories, and public lectures. Anthony, the organizer, pushed the movement to the fore­ front and became a symbol of persistence in public campaigning. Together they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and consolidated it with other organizations to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 2000, historian David Brion Davis noted in the New York Review of Books that the Stanton/Anthony Papers “will be indispensable for future studies of American feminism,” and the edition has received broad critical acclaim for its careful selection and annotation.

23 ational Network Nof Archives IIn 1974 the National Historical Publications Commission—as it had been known since 1934—expanded its mission to include “records” when Congress broadened the Commission’s portfolio to include the collection and preservation of historical documents and records held by state and local governments as well as nonprofit organizations throughout the country. As part of the legislation, the new NHPRC asked each state to establish a historical records advisory board to assist in the evaluation of grant applications and as a mechanism for statewide archives planning and services. Within a few years, every state had accepted the challenge. Grant funds began flowing in the late 1970s to help states assess needs, formulate statewide plans in consultation with state archives, and undertake strategic planning. Out of this national program, a network of state archives has grown and matured these past 35 years. Now represented by the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), the state boards have partnered with the NHPRC to leverage additional resources for archives. In Missouri, for example, the NHPRC has invested over $1.5 million, which has inspired an additional $2 million in state and local contributions. State boards have assisted in providing leadership and training to archivists and records managers in all 50 states. Only through the creation of this national network is it possible to share best practices, modernize archives programs, and prepare for emergencies. For example, within 48 hours after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had come ashore in the Gulf States, the NHPRC offered emer­ gency assistance, and through its state­based partnerships, disaster pre­ paredness training is becoming part of every state’s basic operations.

24 “It has been said in the Convention that many of the old records of the State are now being rapidly destroyed by time, and will soon be lost to oblivion if some provision is not made for collecting and preserving all the reminiscences of its settle­ ment and early history.” —The Baltimore Sun on the 1867 Maryland Constitutional Convention

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Kansas Collection

More than two decades ago,an NHPRC grant awarded to Spencer Research Library’s MKansas Collection laid the foundation for a systematic archival collecting program that continues today at the University of Kansas Libraries. It began as a cooperative effort with the African American Studies department to expand the University’s primary resources on the African American experience. After spending several years focused on acquiring these resources, it was apparent that without a major external funding source, a significant portion of this historical record was at risk of being lost to the ravages of time. The Kansas Collection first received NHPRC funding in 1986 to survey, acquire, and organize written The NHPRC has helped and photographic material documenting the hundreds of archives projects African American experience in Kansas. Included in this grant was a provision for the that bring to light historical hiring of a full­time field archivist to travel documents from traditionally across the state and a manuscript processor to underserved communities. organize the collections. By the end of the grant, almost 200 additional collections had been acquired and made available for public use. The legacy of early black settlers to the Jayhawk state is reflected in the records of schools, businesses, churches and clubs, and the papers of families and individuals. This effort resulted in the cultivation of an important group of potential donors and supporters of the University and research library. Recognizing the significant benefits of this collecting program, the Dean of the Libraries made the grant­funded position of Field Archivist for African American Col­ lections a permanent one. The Kansas Collection is now a major resource on the regional experience of African Americans.

27 merican AHeritage Center

The American Heritage Center, the University of Wyoming’s manuscripts Trepository, rare book library, and university archive, is a major archives for the history of Wyoming and the American West, the mining and petroleum industries, U.S. politics and world affairs, environment and natural resources, journalism, transportation, the history of books, and 20th­century entertainment such as popular music, radio, television, and film. A few years ago, the AHC became a principle actor in an effort to revolutionize the way archives approach collections management and public access to archives. A grant from the NHPRC supported the Center in taking a new approach that concentrated on identifying the entirety of its collections using basic descrip­ tive entries, and combining this with online finding aids for several hundred collections, selective deaccessioning (based upon a parallel development of a formal collecting policy), and targeted surveys of users about access issues and techniques. Out of this work, a journal article by Center director Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner of the Minnesota Historical Society has spurred archives around the world to try new ways to reduce backlogs and provide access to materials as quickly as possible. After adopting cutting­edge methods and bringing in a national expert, the AHC was able to double the amount processed in a single year—2,115 cubic feet (close to a half a mile of paper). By making more hidden collections available, the Center was able to serve 7,615 researchers from 42 states and 15 nations in a single year. The Center’s new approach to collections management has placed it in a national leadership position within the profession, particularly in the realms of intellectual access, collections development, and reappraisal.

28 “More Product, Less Process,” a phrase coined by archivists Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner, has led many in the archives field to concentrate on how to bring his­ torical materials to light. “The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication thereon, is the only effectual guardian of every other right.” –– James Madison

30 residential PRecordings Program

Between 1940 and 1973, six presidents of the United States preserved Bon tape thousands of hours of meetings and conversations conducted in the White House, the Executive Office Building, and during travel. From Franklin Roosevelt, who recorded infrequently, to Richard Nixon, whose voice­activated system captured 3,700 hours of discussion, the White House tapes constitute an irreplaceable source for the study of U.S. history and government. At the Miller Center on the campus of the University of Virginia, the Presidential Recordings Program has been transcribing, analyzing, and annotating thousands of hours of tapes secretly recorded during the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. The resulting transcriptions are being published in selective print editions and a digital edition under the auspices of Rotunda, the University of Virginia Press’s digital imprint. The editions are arranged by thematic concerns, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the War on Poverty, Civil Rights, and Vietnam, so that readers can understand how views and policies changed over time. Perhaps most dramatically, these formerly secret tapes document, as do no other source, the processes involved in Presidential decision­making. Not only is this material a rich resource for scholars who cannot afford to visit the various Presidential libraries and listen to thousands of hours of tape, but the project is providing an invaluable permanent reference for future generations interested in one of the most turbulent and important periods of American history.

31 John C. and Jessie Frémont

He was known as the Pathfinder, the 19th­century explorer who mapped Hmuch of the American West, and who later struck it rich in the gold rush in California, became one of the first two Senators elected to Con­ gress from that state, and in 1856, the first nominee for the Presidency of the newly formed Republican Party. She was the daughter of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who scandalized some by eloping at age 17 with Frémont, a lieutenant in the Army at the time. Over the years as his companion, she carved out an important role for

Since 1964, the NHPRC has herself as a writer, a dedicated abolitionist, and as funded some 300 historical records “secretary and other self ” to her mercurial publishing projects that have husband. Together they left a remarkable account of life in the 19th century as witnesses to, and produced to date 950 volumes of active participants in, many of the events that documentary editions and defined that turbulent century. thousands of feet of microfilm. In a project that spanned the 1970s to 1984, the NHPRC supported the publication of The Expeditions of John C. Frémont, a four­volume documentary edition that captured the Frémonts’ many travels undertaken between 1838 and 1854. Nine years later, a selective edition of The Letters of Jessie Benton Frémont was published, including correspondence with Horace Greeley, Abraham Lincoln, Dorothea Dix, Greenleaf Whittier, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Theodore Roosevelt. The NHPRC has a long history of supporting documentary editions on American pathfinders and explor­ ers—from the Journals of Lewis and Clark to the John Muir Papers—creating a permanent historical record of the American journey into the West.

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33 Recognizing the importance of embracing the Web as an access tool, the Booker T. Washington Papers project was an early adopter of online access to its work. Now virtually every ongoing editorial project is considering how to publish online, and many are digitizing original records and their transcriptions in an effort to make public access easier, faster, and better. BookerT.Washington

American educator, orator, author, head of the Tuskegee Institute, and Athe dominant leader of the African American community nationwide from the 1890s to his death in 1915, Booker T. Washington is a seminal figure in American history. Just as Booker T. Washington was a pioneer in African American life in 19th­century America, so too are the Booker T. Washington Papers a pioneer in the use of the Internet to teach history in 21st­century America. The project began publishing print editions in 1972, and over the next dozen years, an additional 11 volumes were brought forth through the University of Illinois Press. With the com­ pletion of a cumulative index, the documentary edition stood as an exam­ ple of thorough scholarship and annotation and has been used widely in historical research. In March 2000, four leaders in historical scholarship and cutting­ edge technology joined forces to create the premier resource for historians on the Web. The American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the University of Illinois Press, and the National Academy Press announced the launch of the History Cooperative to publish digital versions of current issues of the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History. Since that time, the History Cooperative has continued to experiment with using technology to bring primary source materials to historians. The first documentary edition of its kind, the Booker T. Washington Papers Online (www.historycooperative.org/btw/index.html) offers a free searchable edition for all 14 volumes of the printed edition, as well as links to Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery.

35 nion U Theological Seminary

A photograph of the Union Theological Seminary Class of 1897 depicts A20 men, all white, standing outside the old Seminary grounds on Park Avenue, Manhattan. This class was the first to include the Bachelor of Divinity degree and the first to include a woman—Emilie Grace Briggs— among its degree recipients.As summa cum laude, she was the first person to whom the B.D. was given at the commencement exercises that year, yet the Seminary forbade her to be in the photograph. Indeed, no official record of her having earned a degree from Union exists, save her alumna file and her inclusion in the alumni catalogue Since it began funding archives until her death in 1944. projects in the mid­1970s, the The memory of the first woman to graduate from Union Seminary may have been lost, much NHPRC has helped thousands of like the records documenting the history of organizations preserve historical women in theology scattered in archives and documents. private collections across the United States. The Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship, housed at the Burke Library, Union Theological Seminary, serves to provide access to the records of women who have reshaped theological education and American church life since 1900. A grant from the NHPRC helped make possible the survey and accessioning of 22 collections—from the records of the International Association of Women Ministers to the account of the 11 Episcopal women known as the “Philadelphia Eleven” who were “irregularly” ordained by retired bishops in 1974, and whose challenge to authority resulted in the General Convention of 1976 officially opening the priesthood and episcopate to women.

36 37 Dissemination of the results of NHPRC projects can take many forms. In 2007, CNN produced an online special on the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers called “Words that Changed a Nation.” — www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/king.papers/

38 Martin Luther King,Jr.

The preeminent leader of the American civil rights movement and Tthe prominent spokesman for African Americans in the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr., played a central role in the history of the nation. The King Papers project, sponsored by Stanford University in association with the King estate and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, seeks to publish the most important correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts of Dr. King, utilizing extensive collections of archival materials, including sound recordings and moving images. To date, the project has assembled some 66,000 documents, but acquisition continues, with ongoing research recently discovering an additional 1,000 documents in the Birmingham Public Library. All told, the selected edition is planned as a 14­volume set. Thus far, six volumes have been published by the University of California Press, detailing Dr. King’s family background and early letters and speeches, his years at Boston University and early ministry, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–56, and his sermons. The next volume is scheduled to cover 1961 and 1962, the years of the Freedom Rides and the Albany Movement. The critically acclaimed King Papers and the accompanying web site at http://mlk­kpp01.stanford.edu/ are used widely by scholars and students, and documents up to 1958 can be found online through a complementary project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

39 lectronic Mail E Collection and Preservation

The proliferation of e­mail over the past two decades presents a Tchallenge to archives, particularly at the government level, that are required to keep records of official business. Three states are combining forces to leverage their knowledge and skills to help design and test a tool that will collect electronic mail, maintain a copy of the original e­mail and attachment, and transform the e­mail from its native format to a more stable format. This unique collaboration was developed by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and includes state government agencies in Kentucky and Pennsylvania. These three participating states have each benefited from previous electronic records funding from the NHPRC. In 1992, Pennsylvania received a planning grant to develop guidelines to handle electronic records. Kentucky was one of four states that took part in the Persistent Archives Testbed project coordinated through the San Diego Supercomputer Center. And a staff member from the North Carolina State Archives, Druscilla Simpson, received an NHPRC­funded Electronic Records Fellowship that focused on the development of software that inspired the collaborative project. From the Electronic Mail Collection and Preservation Collaborative (EMCAP), the project staff has developed new software that will allow archives to preserve e­mail regardless of its original means of creation,. The EMCAP software could then be used by state and local governments across the nation to manage public e­mail records.

40 The NHPRC was one of the first Federal agencies to fund projects involving the preservation of electronic records, with grants as early as 1982.

41 Enhancing the fields of archives and documentary editing are essential components of the Commission’s mission. Hundreds of individuals have been trained in documentary editing and in archives, records management, and manuscript curation through NHPRC educational and professional development programs.

42 ducating E Archivists and Editors

Education has always been an important part of the NHPRC’s mission. EFrom its founding in 1934 and the growth of the publishing program to the full­fledged grants program, the Commission has funded a number of professional development projects. Its very first “records” grant went to the Society of American Archivists to prepare five manuals on basic archival techniques for beginner­level archivists and staff of small repositories. Another grant went to a Native American archives initiative that gave birth to a large number of tribal archival programs and developed a curriculum for training tribal archivists to deal not only with records and the oral tradition, but managing archives within the context of tribal governments. One of the longest­running continuous training programs through the NHPRC is the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents, which began in 1972. Held at the University of Wisconsin, the Editing Institute is a one­week seminar for those interested in documentary editing work. Over 650 people have attended what is affectionately known as “Camp Edit.” Scores of attendees have gone on to direct editing projects nationwide. Documentary editors have also mentored Editing Fellows over the years through NHPRC grants. Counterpart to those efforts is the Archives Leadership Institute, also held in Madison, a one­week seminar for developing a new generation of leaders in archives and preservation. At a time when the archival community and docu­ mentary editing field are graying, preparing a new generation of leaders, equipped for the challenges of the 21st century, is essential to continuing the preservation of and access to primary sources for history.

43 amilies of F Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association

At the conclusion of the Vietnam War, thousands of U.S. allies, em­ Aployees, and Vietnamese dissidents were imprisoned in communist reeducation camps. The Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) was founded in 1977 to assist citizens of Viet­ nam in applying through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Orderly Departure Program to emigrate to the United States. The FVPPA also assisted over 10,000 Archives provide people with the ac­ Vietnamese refugees with resettlement to cess to records that protect individual the United States in the past two decades. Over 157 linear feet of organizational rights. The Families of Vietnamese records document the work of the organiza­ Political Prisoners Association con­ tion, and these records and case files provide tinues to help political dissidents find an excellent source of primary documents that can be used to study the Vietnamese asylum in the United States. immigration experience. Each case file tells a story of an individual or family and their journey to the United States. Donated in 2005 to Texas Tech University by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, the collection opened in 2008. A grant from the NHPRC has helped establish the archives, develop a comprehensive finding aid, apply conservation treat­ ment to 14 feet of records damaged by mold, and publicize the collection through the Vietnam Archive’s web site and Texas Tech. In June 2009, a former Vietnamese reeducation camp pris­ oner won political asylum in the U.S. by using documents found in the FVPPA Collection.

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45 rand Canyon GArchives

Two brothers originally from Pittsburgh, Ellsworth and Emery Kolb, Theaded west in 1901, not as prospectors, but to capture the burgeoning trade of photographing tourists taking mule rides to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Shots of the stunning scenery were also in high demand, and the adventurous pair went to great lengths to obtain them. One of their best­known images portrays Emery, view camera in hand, suspended by a rope from a log in a crevice while Ellsworth moni­ tors the process from above. Through the decades, Kolb cameras captured Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, William Jennings Bryan, and a host of other dignitar­ ies. By the time Emery passed away at age 95, he had amassed tens of thousands of photographs, letters from fans, and voluminous business records. In 1979, three years after Emery’s death, an NHPRC grant to the Cline Library at Northern Arizona University helped assure that the tremendous legacy compiled by the Kolb brothers would be preserved. Some 17,000 images were cleaned and cataloged, 15,000 negatives printed, and 10,000 feet of film copied. Interest in the Kolb Collection continues to increase. Scientists from the fields of hydrology, geology, physical science, geography, archaeology, and biology frequently use Kolb images for the basis of repeat photogra­ phy, enabling them to study change through time to the landscape. In his PBS documentary on the National Parks, Ken Burns relied on the Kolb archives to tell the tale of America’s greatest national park, the Grand Canyon, which Roosevelt called “the one great sight which every Ameri­ can should see.”

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Cover: Photograph of the Grand Canyon from the Emery Kolb Collection. Courtesy Northern Ari­ zona University, Cline Library, Special Collections and Archives. PhPages viii­1:o Seattlet cityscapeo and detail fromc a 1920sr postcard,e courtesyd Seattlei Municipalt Archives.s Pages 2­3: Detail and cover from Free At Last (1992, The New Press) Page 5: John Keel, a dancer at the Red Earth Festival, photo courtesy Red Earth. Page 6: Thomas Edison’s notebook entry on the automatic translating printing machine for teleg­ raphy (August 31, 1871). Courtesy, The Papers of Thomas Edison. Page 9: Young Abraham Lincoln. Courtesy Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Page 11: Collage from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Page 12: Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong and page 13 Louis Armstrong, courtesy Monterey Jazz Festival. Page 15: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton (details from portraits, courtesy various collections) Page 17: Alice James, sister of Henry and William James. BMS AM 1092.9 by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University Page 18: An 1865 court summons from Troup County, Georgia. Courtesy Troup County Archives. Page 21: Eleanor Roosevelt addresses the Knesset in Israel in 1952. Photo courtesy the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library. Page 22: Petition signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others asking for an Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit the States from disenfranchising any of their citizens of the grounds of sex. Courtesy Stanton­Anthony Papers, Rutgers University. Page 24: Page from the 1797 cipher book of Ann Butler. Courtesy New Jersey Historical Society, Collection MG­1018, Daughters of the American Revolution, Caesarea Chapter. Page 25: Satellite image of Hurricane Katrina, August 28, 2005. Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. Page 26: African American family from the early 20th century – Uncle Charlie, Aunt Bess, and children Hazel and Charlene from the Loretta Carraher Collection, Kansas Collection, RH PH 74, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries. Page 29: Cheyenne Frontier Days ­ Events Photo File 15,American Heritage Center,University of Wyoming. Pages 30–31: Attorney General Robert Kennedy confers with President Lyndon Johnson in Octo­ ber 1964. LBJ has a discussion with Senator Richard Russell. Photos by Yoichi Okamoto, courtesy Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. Page 33: First Republican Party Presidential ticket, courtesy Library of Congress. Page 34: Booker T. Washington, courtesy Library of Congress. Page 37: Dissertation title page for Emilie Grace Briggs. Courtesy Union Theological Seminary. Pages 38–39: Martin Luther King, Jr. Images courtesy the King Papers project. Page 41: Postal Telegraph Messengers, Indianapolis, IN, 1908. Records of the Children’s Bureau, Department of Labor. National Archives, ARC 523084. Page 42: University of Wisconsin Students c. 1869 (WHi­27716), Wisconsin Historical Society. Page 45: Documents collage from the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association. Pages 46–47: Detail from photograph of the Grand Canyon from the Emery Kolb Collection. Emery Kolb, belayed by brother Ellsworth, prepares to photograph the Grand Canyon from an unusual perspective. Courtesy Northern Arizona University, Cline Library, Special Collec­ tions and Archives.

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